Suddenly, his eyes didn’t see Carnal. His mind had a vision of his wife cooking, eating and being with their family that day in her clingy wraparound dress, high-heeled boots and the diamonds he gave her last Christmas in her ears and at her neck.
Ty gave Lexie diamonds for her birthday, Christmas and their anniversary, every year. He worked overtime to do it. And he never fucked around. She didn’t get earrings or a necklace or a bracelet. She got a set. Sometimes a couple of pieces, sometimes three.
For their fifth wedding anniversary that year, though, Bessie and Roland came up from Miami to watch the girls for a long weekend while Ty took his wife back to Vegas where they stayed in the same hotel but in a better room and he topped her wedding rings with a wide band set all around with diamonds. It cost a fucking whack and the stack of rings nearly covered her finger to her knuckle.
She took them off to clean them every day and she took them off to give her massages.
Other than that, they were never off. Not when she was showering, cooking, bathing the girls.
Never.
“When is this?” he asked Sam, eyes on Carnal.
“Two weeks.”
Two weeks. They hadn’t had a real vacation since April when they went to Ella’s for week over Easter.
He bent his neck and looked at his feet, muttering, “I’ll talk to Lex.”
He heard Sam’s chuckle then, “All right then, see you in two weeks.”
Then he had nothing but dead air.
He flipped his phone shut and shoved it in his back pocket knowing Sam was right. Hawaii, a private jet, money in the bank and diamonds, his woman would not be hard to convince especially since this was his first game since the one he sat two days after he met her.
He’d stuck to his vow.
Until now.
He moved through the house, seeing the shadowed pieces on the walls.
Lex was a regular at the frame shop in Chantelle, such a regular, they sent Christmas cards. Glitter pen art done by Lell framed like it was executed by a master. Unusual multi-frames holding family snapshots. Two small shadowboxes displaying their daughter’s tiny hospital bracelets, two others that held the first lock of their hair cut by Dominic, Lell’s tied in a little, pale yellow ribbon, Vivie’s with a pale pink one. Down the main hall, a double line of black-framed, cream-matted, black-ink, tiny but slowly getting bigger handprints, five of Lell’s, one Lexie did two days after Lella came home from the hospital and one for each birthday; three of Vivie’s little hand.
There’d be another row there soon or she might branch out to the opposite wall and he liked that, he liked a décor based in comfort and family but he loved the home his wife made for them.
He checked the outer doors one last time to make sure they were locked, engaged the alarm then he went to the stairs.
But he stopped dead at the foot when he saw the shadowed figure sitting halfway up.
Ella.
He felt her eyes in the dark and gave her his.
She was silent.
He was too.
Then she whispered, “Love you, Ty.”
It was the first time she’d said it even after years of her acting it and Jesus, God, it felt fucking good.
“Same,” he rumbled, his voice rough.
He saw the shadow of her head nod then she got up and he watched her walk up the stairs and turn right.
He sucked in breath. Then he followed her.
As he did every night, he looked in on Lella and Vivie who shared a room at Lexie’s demand. She wanted them to grow up close, like Bessie and Honey did. She wanted them to have girlie nighttime chats. She wanted them to have togetherness.
She got what she wanted. Ty didn’t argue. There was no reason, her motives were sound.
Both his girls were out. Not a surprise. They’d had a full day.
Then, quietly, because Ella, Bess and Roland and Honey and Zander were staying with them, he went to his wife.
He barely got the doors closed before she looked at him from her place sitting cross-legged on the bed and said, “The answer is yes.”
He stopped and stared at her.
Then he guessed, “Sam called you before he called me.”
She threw her arms in the air and, in a muted shout, cried, “Hawaii!”
Jesus. His wife was a goof.
He walked to the end of the bed, trying and failing not to let the scar marring her left, dark, arched eyebrow penetrate. He could ignore it in the day. It was the night when the rest of the world faded and it was him and Lex in their room, their bed, when he couldn’t. It was a constant reminder of that day where he lived for agonizing hours with the possibility that he could lose her, he would never have Lell or Vivie, when he couldn’t ignore it.
It wasn’t identical to his, slightly off to the outer edge whereas Ty’s was in the middle. He didn’t mind matching Team Walker t-shirts (something, now, both his daughters had, his wife and his daughters wore them often, he wore his solely at the gym).
He did mind semi-matching scars.